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State Trends in Adjudication and Enforcement

The objective of this research is to develop recommendations for harmonized data collection protocols among U.S. state and local courts and motor vehicle administrators to enable valid comparisons of state enforcement and adjudication practices. It is expected that the research will address the following questions: What kinds of changes do administrative offices of the courts (or equivalent state agency), state driver licensing agencies (SDLAs), and other entities involved in the enforcement and adjudication aspect of traffic offenses need to make so that public research of state trends in adjudication and enforcement is more feasible? What kind of changes must states make to electronic databases so that cross-sectional and temporal court cases can be broken down to greater, more finely tuned detail so that specific state policies can be subjected to empirical scrutiny? What kinds of process standards do states need to adopt to ensure that activities related to license plate reciprocity can be tracked (i.e. court adjudication, changes to standard driver license statuses, changes to commercial driver's license (CDL) driver license statuses, etc.)? How much funding is required to make these changes, and might they be made as part of a broader reform of state court systems? Why do some states differ in their propensity to send individuals to issue citations, uphold fines, send violators to state traffic school, and revoke licenses? Which policies have the most impact on highway safety? Specifically, do lax enforcement and adjudication lead to higher crash rates, injuries, and fatalities, all else equal?